Bed Time Story
by TempestJo
Summary: AU, one shot, Once upon a time, very far away there was a prince...


Once upon a time, a long time ago and very far away, there lived a very handsome Prince.

Now, I know what you are thinking, this Prince -he was handsome, and fair, and honest and utterly perfect, and yes, handsome he was. But blonde hair did not crown his well shaped head, nor did eyes of sapphire blue gaze out from under his arched brows. No, this Prince was of the Tall and Dark variety, and despite his youthful visage and easy laugh, he scowled when he heard it whispered he was pretty.

Real men, he felt sure, were not pretty. So from a young age this Prince had indulged himself in masculine sports, and gloried in every scar and wound with relish. He might be handsome, he might be a Prince, but tell him to his face and you might end up with a well placed arrow sticking out of your rear. He became known as the Dark Prince, his practised scowls and his dark overcoats striking fear into the hearts of his enemies and lust into the minds of maidens worldwide, who universally agreed that for _him_ they would travel to hell and back gladly.

Aside from one or two of the more shapely, he generally thought them all mad, and watched them with a wary eye.

The only female who didn't seem to want our Prince, was the local apothecary, who seemed more intrigued by his scarred form and excellent bone structure then any of his shooting trophies. This irritated the Prince, as he was not dead yet, and wished this brunette would want to do more with his prostate form than inspect it with a magnifying glass and make notes about the exact measurements of his clavicles.

Again and again, our Prince tried to win her heart by showing his traits of bravery and agility, rescuing her from dragons and deviants and other folk not worth mentioning, only to be thanked curtly and told that she could take care of herself thank you, but had he noticed the unusual something-or-other of the whatcha-ma-callit, and the obvious signs of cannibalism? (He hadn't, and was repulsed, as our Prince much prefers talk of ale and barbeque.) He often watched from his throne as this apothecary happily dug in the compost, resurrecting chickens and cows, and once a scullery maid who had disappeared. (The cook did it.)

So while the list of accomplishments grew, the attachment between them did not, and the Dark Prince despaired. He toyed with a fair scribe from afar, but she did not measure his scapula nor admire his symmetry, and so he sent her back to whence she came, and took to studying the apothecary again, who had remained cheerfully and resolutely task orientated during his dalliance -much to his dismay.

And yet it was not all as it seemed, for the apothecary was not so much unfeeling as good at hiding her feelings, and had decided that were she given a chance to win the Dark Princes heart -or soul, she found either unlikely but conceded she would at least try to present a logical argument towards it, should the occasion arise. And arise it did, for very shortly after she reached this momentous decision, the two found themselves shut into a secret passage between floors awaiting rescue by Sir Duck, named such because he was frankly a bit of a quack about the softer sciences. In the darkness, conversation quickly turned, and once our Prince was incapacitated by his back and forced to remain in one spot, she broached the topic.

However, our Prince had been doing some thinking, of the heavy sort, while he watched the apothecary, and he discovered that while he prided himself on being truthful, he was not in fact entirely an honest Prince. He had found he had Issues, (yes, with a capital I.) While the King (Hank of Suspenders) had taken to dancing with well endowed women and seemed years away from the grave, the Dark Prince's own father (for he was in fact third in line to the throne at his birth, though was now second) had been enslaved for some years by the evil sorcerer Jim Beam. The distress of loosing his father had no doubt made him a stronger man, but self observation showed that things were not all as good as they could be.

Until recently, the Dark Prince's brother, Prince Jared, had seemed set to follow in the treacherous path of The Bottle, until he set out on an ill-advised expedition and come home with a foreign bride and a new lease on life.

This was very irritating to our Prince, as he'd been on dozens of expeditions and never managed to come home with a bride, he could not even find one locally, though he had a son, Prince Curly-locks, who spent most of time in his mother's village when he was not exploding mineral waters with the apothecary's father.

So to continue our story, the Dark Prince and the Apothecary decided, in a fit of rationality, that they would continue to ignore their bodily urges regarding each other (though both admitted it would be fantastic) until such a time as he became honest (and less miffed) and she became trusting. They chose a date, and agreed to it, and that there would be no scribes or wise men to interfere with the healing process, which of course had nothing whatsoever to do with Sir Duck's soft sciences.

And so things returned to normal in the far away land of Washinglittle, and our Prince accumulated more scars of bravery and the Apothecary accumulated more knowledge and kept a firm eye on the Prince's gluteous maximus (to check his gait, naturally, though she'd never double checked something so often before.)

At last, on a lovely summer day, they met on a bridge, and he announced he was honest, and she announced she was trusting, and though neither quite believed the other, they believed themselves and so fused their lips in a declaration of sealing their fates to one another, and all was well for a time, until the Prince Curly-locks progressed from exploding mineral waters to exploding sheds and chicken coops, and the newest Prince (who was not blonde haired but did have sapphire eyes) grew tall enough to reach the lever on the facilities and delighted in experimenting with which objects could be flushed and which flooded the bath chamber (all agreed his notes, while soggy were impeccably thorough for a two year old.)

But that's another story for another day, and another happily-ever-after.


End file.
